Democrats look at utility dues

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— The House Energy and Commerce Committee's probe into a secretive utility industry group linked to EPA's Bill Wehrum is looking into whether electricity customers were unfairly made to foot the bill of efforts to fight climate change regulations.

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— Vice President Mike Pence is in Texas today to tour an oil rig and promote the Trump administration's United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

— The long-sought, hard-fought Colorado River drought agreement was signed into law by President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY! I'm your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Bracewell's Scott Segal gets the trivia win for knowing the first improvised air conditioner in the White House came under President James Garfield. It was constructed in an effort to keep the president cool after he was mortally wounded. For today: Who was the first president to publicly take up golfing during his time in the White House? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com. Follow us on Twitter @kelseytam, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.

DUES DILIGENCE: House Democrats' look into the Utility Air Regulatory Group is aiming to pull back the curtain on whether utility customers are unknowingly paying for efforts to fight air pollution and climate change regulations.

More than two dozen utilities paid millions of dollars to the former lobbying firm of EPA air chief Bill Wehrum, Hunton Andrews Kurth, which ran UARG. The industry group pushed for rollbacks of several Obama administration regulations on coal-fired power plants, as Pro's Zack Colman reports this morning.

In last week's letters to eight UARG members, the House E&C Committee — which recently launched a probe into the group — asked companies to detail the source of the payments. In a statement to POLITICO, Chairman Frank Pallone said the probe comes down to transparency. "Ratepayers have a right to know if they're involuntarily paying for a secret campaign to undermine critical public health protections," he said.

As Zack notes, many states prohibit utilities from using revenues derived from their captive customers for lobbying or political activities. But consumer advocates say many companies use those fundsanyway by exploiting loopholes and using creative accounting. For their part, the utilities deny UARG's activities amount to lobbying in the first place, but the group's 2017 budget documents published by POLITICO showed it was actively seeking to push back on pollution regulations.

If the money spent on UARG costs was derived from utilities' revenues, the amount contributed per customer would be very small. But the sums add up to millions of dollars for the group, Zack reports. "I can tell you in my rates it's almost invisible. But that opens a door that's dangerous," said Scott Hempling, an attorney andadjunct professor Georgetown Lawwho works on electricity rate cases. "Think about it not from an accounting point, but a democracy point." Read the story.

SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED: Trump on Tuesday night signed the bill, H.R. 2030 (116), turning the seven-state Colorado River drought contingency plan into law. In a tweet, the president credited Sen. Martha McSally, the Republican who is up for reelection in thirsty Arizona in 2020: "Thanks to @SenMcSallyAZ for getting it done. Big deal for Arizona!," he said.

While McSally introduced the Senate's version of bill, she was joined by every senator from the seven basin states. In the House, the measure was backed by a bipartisan coalition led by Natural Resources Chairman Raúl Grijalva.

PENCE IN THE PERMIAN BASIN: Vice President Mike Pence will travel to Midland, Texas, today, to visit the Permian Basin oil field — the field that's largely responsible for the boom in U.S. crude production — and a Diamondback Energy oil rig.

While there, Pence will tour the rig, receive a briefing on its operations, and deliver remarks to employees on the Trump administration's NAFTA replacement plan, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

The VP's trip to Texas follows Trump's pitch to speed up pipeline development in Texas last week. But Pence, who hails from oil-producing Indiana, might have a tougher time selling the trade deal to the oil and gas industry than the president did on his executive orders. Some industry groups have previously expressed concern over the trade deal.

INSLEE CALLS FOR CLIMATE DEBATE: Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is calling on the DNC to hold an entirely climate change-focused debate in a petition launched Tuesday. The presidential contender, who is running with a focus on climate change, said the issue "can't be a one-off question where candidates get to give a soundbite and move on: Climate change is at the heart of every issue that matters to voters, and voters deserve to hear what 2020 presidential candidates plan to do about it."

GOOD AS GOLD: Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has joined U.S. Gold Corp.'s board of directors. Zinke will get at least $90,000 per year for his "consulting services … including investor relations and governmental relations services," half of which will come via common stock of the company, according to the company's SEC filing. (That stock gained 3 cents after the announcement to close at $1.05 per share on Tuesday.)

In a statement, Zinke said he was "excited to work closely with management and the Board to help make mining great again in America." Zinke also told The Associated Press his work for the group would not involve lobbying. Still, the head of the company said Zinke would "help move us forward" on two pending mining projects in Nevada and Wyoming, and one of those projects is on land controlled by BLM, the AP added.

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FLOODING IN FOCUS: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a field hearing in Glenwood, Iowa, today, chaired by Sen. Joni Ernst, to look at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' flood management at the Missouri River Basin following the "bomb cyclone" that hit the Midwest in March. Sens. Chuck Grassley, Jerry Moran and Kirsten Gillibrand are expected to participate.

Testifying on the first panel of the day are Maj. Gen. Scott Spellmon, deputy commanding general for civil and emergency operations in the Army Corps, and John Remus, chief of the Missouri River Basin Water Management Division of the Army Corps' Northwestern Division. Later this morning, officials from Iowa, Kansas and Missouri will speak.

"Beyond the Missouri River basin, this year's flood season has challenged Federal and State agencies and local communities across the Nation," Spellmon will say, according to his testimony. "At one point, over 300 river gauges indicated a flood stage somewhere in the Nation, and there were over 183 reported ice jams on rivers across the northern portions of the country."

After Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) delivered a speech last month where she said the Council on American-Islamic Relations "was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties," Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), a former Navy SEAL, responded: "First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 as 'some people who did something.'"

Ocasio-Cortez, who had already accepted Barr's offer to visit Kentucky,defended Omar, and responded to Crenshaw by tweeting that he refused "to cosponsor the 9/11 Victim’s Compensation Fund, yet [has] the audacity to drum resentment towards Ilhan w/completely out-of-context quotes." Now Barr is using Ocasio-Cortez's remarks to demand an apology. In a letter to Ocasio-Cortez on Friday, Barr said her comments "demonstrate a lack of civility that is becoming far too common in the U.S. House of Representatives," and called on her to apologize to Crenshaw before coming to Kentucky.

A spokesperson for Barr clarified to ME that the "invitation still stands, but no plans have been confirmed" on the trip. She added that to her knowledge, there's been "no response from the congresswoman in regards [to] the letter." A spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, told The Hill the office is still looking into the trip.

— Liz Trotter, who handles communications and media relations at STG, will begin next week as press secretary for lands, wildlife and oceans at Earthjustice.

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About The Author : Kelsey Tamborrino

Kelsey Tamborrino is an energy reporter for POLITICO Pro.

Before joining POLITICO, she was a communications intern at the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an editorial intern at Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and an online editorial intern at Men’s Health magazine.

In spring 2015, Tamborrino graduated from the Pennsylvania State University, where she studied print journalism, English and international studies. At Penn State, Tamborrino was the managing editor of Penn State’s student newspaper, The Daily Collegian, for the 2014-15 academic year. She also studied British politics and English literature in Leeds, England, where she studied abroad at the University of Leeds.